MARAWI CITY, Lanao del Sur (PIA)--Plan International and its partners held a "Kalilang: Festival of Friendship" Monday, November 28, to celebrate the gains of the Marawi Response Project (MRP) in uplifting the lives of internally displaced persons in Marawi and their host communities.
The Kalilang, which also marked the formal closeout of the project, showcased the stories of rebuilding and self-reliance among the MRP beneficiaries, best practices in project implementation, and knowledge products produced in the last four years.
MRP Chief-of-Party Marlon Libot said the project was able to deliver P329 million worth of in-kind grant assistance to displaced persons and their host communities. This covered community improvements, community engagements, and gender and development project grants.
He said MRP also extended P71 million worth of assistance for the Covid-19 response covering medical frontliners assistance, health facilities, and livelihood adaptation support for affected communities.
The project likewise organized 672 community solidarity groups (CSGs) representing 16,000 IDPs and host community members and 16 municipal federations of women, youth and farmers representing the 4,000 IDPs and host community members.
These federations, he said, were able to present their respective sectoral agenda and priority resolutions to their respective municipal mayors and became part of the local government units' special bodies.
Libot said they also collaborated with Muslim religious leaders in raising awareness on gender-based violence and he hopes this can be sustained through the help of the organized CSGs.
"Our effort or undertaking in helping create awareness of gender-based violence as well as ensuring that some of the local government units will operationalize their pathway referral system came only in the middle of the conduct of the project and we thought that this is one area wherein a lot of our CSGs can be engaged also," he noted.
With the successful closing of MRP, Libot thanked the local government units in the covered areas of the project, the Task Force Bangon Marawi, and their network of public and private sector partners for their support and contributions.
MRP is funded by USAID and implemented by Plan International and its local partners' Ecosystems Work for Essential Benefits (ECOWEB) and the Maranao People Development Center, Inc. (MARADECA).
The project was intended to improve economic conditions and strengthen community cohesion among displaced persons and their host communities in Marawi and neighboring areas. It covered the cities of Marawi and Iligan and 23 municipalities, 20 of which are in Lanao del Sur. (APB/PIA-10/Lanao del Sur)
